forum Critique my protagonist, please?

Started October 18, 2018 by @AJ

tune

Context: Story is an Action/Urban Fantasy, takes place in a world where force of millions of Grim Reapers exist and are responsible for collecting deceased human souls.

Hey, I really really like this! The character is solid, the concept is fascinating, and all in all it''s definitely something I'd be interested in.
There's not really much to say in the way of critique because she's very well developed, but here's a few ideas, I guess? If you want to push her character further? idk
So
Overview and Appearance

• What exactly do you mean when you say she's "mentally" 18? Is her brain is stuck at that level of hormonal/chemical/etc. development or is it more of a personality thing?
• Is there a story behind the purple streak in her hair or is it just that she thinks it's pretty?
• Is there a reason you left out the Identifying Marks category? It's totally fine that you did, but the way I usually use that category is to point out things about the character that sets them apart from other people with similar features. Say Mara was in a room full of shortish athletic young women with her hair and eye color - what would someone who didn't know her very well be able to recognise her by?

Nature

• There is potential room for development in her motivations - it's excellent that you've codified them so well, but a possible question to ask is what her motivations lead her to do. For example, she's motivated by her loyalty to her loved ones - how does that play out? Is she blindly loyal even when her loved ones are doing the wrong thing? How far would she go for them? If it came to a conflict between her own desires and her loyalty which would win? Which of these motivations is the number one priority always and forever amen?
• Side note - I really love how you've chosen to set up "flaws" as character traits that have negative sides or can be taken to extremes. It's a lot more realistic in the long run!
• Another random idea of expanding her character - what does she fear? Of her fears, which affect her the most in day to day life and why?

Social
There's not much to say here. I do wonder how she would spend an average day and why and how she develops the hobbies she does and what exactly her occupation entails, but that's just because you've wisely chosen not to word vomit your entire worldbuilding onto one character page. So those aren't problems with the character, I'm just way too curious.

Background

• If she's been around for so long and she's had time to pick up skills like mechanics, fighting, and motorcycles, why didn't she choose to improve her education?
• Probably what I wonder the most about this character - how exactly does her backstory affect her today? I saw little hints of it, like for example in the accent thing, or how she changed her name, but what about the big things? How does her background lead her to view the world? She was around for some of the craziest social revolutions/events in recent history - the industrial revolution, progressivism, emancipation for both slaves and women, two world wars, the Civil Rights movement, the Vietnam War, the Cold War, the Gulf Wars… (I'm assuming that because of the nature of her assignment she would have been way in the thick of wars and revolutions because they lead to a lot of violent deaths). How did that affect her? How does it affect her now? Is she conservative and traditional or does she embrace every revolution? What's her view of today and how does she view humanity when she's been around it for so long?

So, again, none of this is meant to imply that she's not good as is. You've done a really good job! This is just here in case you want to expand on her more. You can totally ignore me if you want to